Richard Byers - The Reaver

Eleint, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR)

The cold rain hammered down like a waterfall. Combined with the gray clouds shrouding the sky from horizon to horizon, it was blinding. Peering around the corner of a peasant’s cottage at more of the shacks, sheds, and pigpens that made up the ramshackle village, Anton Marivaldi took solace in the reflection that the enemy couldn’t see him and his crew either.

Then darts of crimson light leaped out of the gloom and streaked at Atala. Like her captain, the pirate with the wheat-blond braids had been trying to spot the foe, and now she sought to duck back down behind the donkey cart she’d been using for cover. She was too slow, though, and a pair of the arcane missiles pierced her face. They didn’t leave holes or any sort of visible wounds, but Atala flopped down in the mud, shuddered for a moment, and then lay still.

“I stand corrected,” Anton murmured. “Someone can see.” Perhaps the wizard had worked magic to sharpen his sight.

From beneath a broad-brimmed hat that shielded from the rain narrow gray eyes set in a long, dour countenance, Naraxes Corieth said, “I say we retreat before the wretches circle around and block the way back to the ship.”

Anton snorted. “How likely is that?”

“How likely was it the child would turn out to have bodyguards,” his first mate retorted, “and one of them a mage? How likely was it that all these farmers would risk their lives to protect him?”

Anton smiled. “It’s the little surprises that make life interesting.”

“Curse it, Captain, one man fell overboard before we even got here because you sailed us into the teeth of that storm-”

“We needed to reach this place before the boy moved on.”

“-and now I count three more of our comrades lying dead!”

“You may count twenty before we’re done. But the rest of us will be rich, and that’s what matters.” Anton turned to survey the crew at large.

His men were well armed for raiders living in the days of the Great Rain, when the perpetual downpour so quickly ruined bowstrings and rusted mail that many folk had dispensed with them. Their weapons coupled with the willingness to take what they needed filled their bellies and provided creature comforts in a time of want. Yet even so, like many people their captain had encountered over the course of the last several months, they had a haggard cast to their faces.

Anton raised his voice to make himself heard over the hiss and clatter of the rain. “We’re going to split into three groups and charge. Naraxes and his squad will swing left. Yuicoerr will take his to the right. I’ll lead mine straight up the center.”

The pirates looked back at him with a sullen lack of enthusiasm. Then Yuicoerr, the second mate, an Aglarondan whose pointed chin and slanted eyes bespoke a trace of elf blood, said, “What about the wizard?”

“He can’t throw spells in three directions at once,” Anton said.

“Maybe not,” Naraxes said, “but he might have more trouble hitting us if we wait until dark.”

Anton grinned. “Excellent idea. Unless, of course, the villages sent a runner in the direction of Teziir, in which case, cavalry will arrive before nightfall to butcher us all.”

“Still,” the first mate said, “one blast of frost or vitriol-”

“Enough!” Anton snapped. “You heard my orders. Now, everyone who isn’t craven, count off by threes!”

For a moment, no one spoke. But then Roberc squared his shoulders and said, “One.” And perhaps the example of the sole halfling in the company, an able fighter but one no bigger than the human child they sought, shamed the others into following suit.

Once the three squads formed up around their leaders, Anton took off his hooded cloak and hung it on a fence post so it wouldn’t hinder him. The cold, stinging rain instantly plastered his inner garments to his skin. Suppressing a grimace, he drew his two curved blades, the long saber he customarily wielded in his left hand and the shorter cutlass, useful for parrying and close-in killing, he generally carried in his right.

The men around him still looked less than eager, but they did seem resigned. Some breathed heavily and glowered like madmen, summoning anger and the urge to violence. Others mouthed prayers, fingered lucky amulets, or guzzled from flasks and wineskins. In Anton’s eyes, all such practices were equally pathetic. Still, whatever it took to steady the rogues so they could perform their function.

When he judged the crew ready, he said, “All right, charge on my signal, and whatever happens, keep going. Our first task is to kill the mage. The second is to seize the little boy. Alive, like Evendur Highcastle wants him.”

He then turned in the direction of the foe, raised his saber over his head, swept it down, and lunged into the open. Scrambling out from behind the cottage, a cluster of nearby chicken coops, and a little shrine to Chauntea with a neglected-looking wooden statue of the Earthmother inside, the other pirates darted after him. Naraxes’s and Yuicoerr’s teams swung wide as instructed.

Anton’s boots splashed up brown water from puddle after puddle. The mud alternately slid under his feet or clung to them like glue, threatening his balance either way. He squinted and blinked against the rain but still saw little sign of the enemy, just shadows in the dusky grayness up ahead.

Javelins plummeted at him and his companions.

But the folk who’d thrown them could, apparently, see no better than he could. Most of the weapons missed. On his right, though, a fellow renegade Turmishan, with skin the same mahogany brown and who still sported the long, black, squared-off beard his captain had long ago shaved off, caught a javelin where his neck met his shoulder and fell down thrashing. Another pirate tripped over him and pitched headlong in the muck.

Then a point of red light appeared amid the downpour. Even though Anton was looking for warning signs of hostile magic, it took him an instant to discern that the spark was moving, indeed, hurtling toward him and his companions fast as an arrow.

“ ’Ware magic!” he roared. He sprang to the side and threw himself down to the ground.

Something boomed. Heat and yellow light washed over him, the ambient murk momentarily giving way to brightness. Men screamed, and when Anton raised his head, he saw them reel and drop as they burned like torches. The fires would go out quickly, dowsed by the rain, but likely not quickly enough to save them.